tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75582782011-07-28T15:02:47.979-04:00Singing the Unsung: Charting a New Art Form<br> <center>- An <I>Omnium</i> Project -</center>Micknoreply@blogger.comBlogger231100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1108622336723594762005-02-17T01:35:00.000-05:002007-06-10T21:03:28.757-04:00

6/10/07As of today, you can find us here. Permanently, I hope.

Micknoreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1096951003372848522004-10-05T01:36:00.000-04:002004-10-05T00:44:34.496-04:00

Maybe my taste runs to the outrageous, to people who say what they mean the way they want to say it and let the chips fall where they may. A View From A Broad is exactly what the title implies, the views of a self-styled 'broad' who takes no shit--and no prisoners. 'Ginmar', a soldier serving in Iraq, is profane, witty, and profound by turns, sometimes all at once. She's an unrepentant,

Micknoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1096654479664404172004-10-01T14:14:00.000-04:002004-10-01T14:14:39.666-04:00

This site has been shamefully neglected the past month, especially during the past couple of weeks that I've been moving my two other sites from Blogger to a webhost with programs that actually work. Arran's Alley wasn't too bad but Dispatch from the Trenches involved a major overhaul and was very time-consuming. I apologize to all the visitors for the lack of action here, and assure you that

Micknoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1095008157223301972004-09-12T13:55:00.000-04:002004-09-12T13:23:01.273-04:00

Since CBFTW's highly regarded (by me as well as others) blog MY WAR--Fear and Loathing in Iraq was shut down--by himself, it now appears--questions have been raised about how the military is handling milblogs. Are they being too heavy-handed? If OPSEC (Operational Security) is the issue, shouldn't they just shut all the blogs down rather than take the risk of someone saying something that

Micknoreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1094831598067972082004-09-10T11:53:00.000-04:002004-09-10T11:54:00.263-04:00

CBFTW has another new post up, plus he has put back some of his archives--he calls it a Best Of--so we can re-read some of the old stuff we thought was lost (it wasn't, thank god; just locked up). In the new post, 'My War Continues...', he says he won't be writing his personal experiences any more and comes as close to telling us what happened as he can. I am officially no longer writing about

Micknoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1094480008814168412004-09-06T10:13:00.000-04:002004-09-08T08:25:15.753-04:00

CBFTW has just published his first post since his blog, MY WAR--Fear and Loathing in Iraq, was shut down, whether by himself or his military superiors is unknown at this point. Yesterday, the LA Times mentioned his blog in an article about milblogs without quoting from it. Today, CB corrects that oversight in a new post that adds what the LAT should have included. But you have to hurry--he says

Micknoreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1093820911159182592004-08-29T19:08:00.000-04:002004-08-30T08:27:43.933-04:00

Those of you who began reading this blog with my review of CBFTW's My War--Fear and Loathing in Iraq (CBFTW is a Hunter Thompson fan) and got thoroughly hooked on it in the days and weeks afterward most likely already know this, but for those of you who may be tuning in late, My War has been shut down--maybe by CBFTW himself, but maybe by the Army, and for reasons that aren't entirely clear. Ron

Micknoreply@blogger.com57tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1092650576590241622004-08-16T06:02:00.000-04:002004-08-16T06:12:16.683-04:00

Ever wonder what William Shakespeare would have to say about today's world? No, me neither, but that's an oversight that can be repaired with a single click. Through the miracle of cyberspace (which appears to have more dimensions than we thought), Master Shakespeare has returned to us--sort of--in the form of a disembodied voice at The Wooden O, his own personal blog. I kid you not.Will isn't

Micknoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1092387365004212702004-08-13T04:56:00.000-04:002004-08-13T05:21:44.006-04:00

Jennifer Balderama is a professional journalist on the business beat, but she's also a real writer. Real writers are rarely satisfied with developing only a single aspect of their talent, which is why I assume this one created Nonsense Verse--to have a place to ply her comic skills. They don't give you much chance to be funny in business journalism, and Jennifer is a very funny writer when she

Micknoreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1092032767794169132004-08-09T02:26:00.000-04:002004-08-09T19:18:00.146-04:00

Cyclopatra is one of those blogs where everything is on the table, from family news to complaints about her work to politics to philosophy to-- Well, you get the idea. I've seen dozens like this but rarely are they as well-written, as honest, as funny, or as perceptive as this one.Cyclopatra (the blogger's handle is the same as the name of her site) is a free-lance programmer with a client-list

Micknoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1092021351469862382004-08-08T23:15:00.000-04:002004-08-08T23:25:34.860-04:00

Most of the photo-blogs I've seen have been little more than glorified family albums. There's nothing wrong with that, but photography is more than just a memory-saver. Years ago, when I had a little money for a while, I took pictures as a hobby and discovered how difficult it was to get what you were looking for: the right composition, the right colorization, the right texture, the right light.

Micknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1091786708415362372004-08-06T06:05:00.000-04:002004-08-06T06:14:20.206-04:00

eRobin at Fact-esque turned me on to this one, and after reading it I have to wonder--was she trying to tell me something? I am Eating My Husband's Soul...and it isn't my first--one of the great blog-titles of all time--is rude, raucous, scatalogical, and unrepentant about any or all of it. Think Erma Bombeck meets Tank Girl. Katy, the author, goes out on limbs I never knew existed and then

Micknoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1091636956820068552004-08-04T12:29:00.000-04:002004-08-04T12:32:10.626-04:00

I've been roundly criticized for treating blogs written by soldiers from Iraq as if they were writing exercises. The responses ranged from a kind of motherly concern ('Don't you know what they've been going through? We don't care how well they write! We're just glad to hear from them.') to freeper-style attacks ('You disgust me. You're a traitor to your country and I hope your server crashes.')

Micknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1091439370800285512004-08-02T05:36:00.000-04:002004-08-02T06:08:05.933-04:00

I first heard of Fafblog a few weeks ago when Jeff at Notes on the Atrocities featured it as his 'Daily Link'. He called it the funniest blog he had ever read, which is a challenge, as far as I'm concerned. The funniest? Funnier than The Mermaid Tavern? That was hard to believe, so of course I had to check it out so I could call him on it when he proved to be wrong. Only I couldn't because he

Micknoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1090995064520831952004-07-28T02:11:00.000-04:002004-07-28T02:20:19.313-04:00

It seems that I am not the only one to have noticed the turn blogs have taken toward literature. I figured there had to be some poetry blogs out there, and just as I was getting around to trying to find them, along comes an email from one 'cafe rg' who operates a blog called 'Rollin' Thunder' that's essentially a clearinghouse for poetry and discussion about same. The entries are a mix of notices

Micknoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1090614738336117702004-07-23T16:32:00.000-04:002004-07-23T16:32:18.366-04:00

A reader named 'Tammi' posed a comment to the cross-post of 'Sgt Missick's Rebuttal' that nicely phrases some real concern about the whole idea of 'reviewing' blogs and asks what criteria I use. Because I think her questions probably reflect a fairly general attitude toward writing blogs, specifically, I thought this was the appropriate place to answer them. I'm not going to reprint her whole

Micknoreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1090481098008039522004-07-22T03:24:00.000-04:002004-07-22T03:53:14.980-04:00

On Sunday, I reviewed three blogs by soldiers from Iraq, including one written by a Sgt Chris Missick called A Line in the Sand which I suspected wasn't legitimate because of the way it read. It would seem I have done Sgt Missick a gross injustice.Much of the following was written tongue in cheek.1. To address Mr. Arren’s fist fallacious statement, that I am “a PR flack for the military,” I have

Micknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1090269946524524082004-07-19T16:45:00.000-04:002004-07-19T22:32:19.616-04:00

In a comment to the previous post, reader Kayz alerted me to a page she keeps that's devoted to promoting blogs by soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a number of civilian blogs by Iraqis (and one Saudi, which looks interesting). I spent yesterday afternoon reading through most of the soldier-blogs and reviewed three of them at Omnium. I'll be getting to the others over the next

Micknoreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1089954138018437402004-07-16T01:02:00.000-04:002004-07-16T01:47:02.543-04:00

This is, as far as I know, one of a kind. Not only is it a blog written by a soldier now serving in Iraq, it's written by a soldier who can write. His grammar isn't great, his spelling is OK, his punctuation is horrible. All of that is beside the point. Like Emmett, he can communicate a sense of time and place so clearly that it's almost physical--you can hear it, you can see it, you can almost

Micknoreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1089744483988964262004-07-13T14:48:00.000-04:002004-07-13T14:48:03.996-04:00

# The latest entry at LumpenBlog, 'Mickey Snaketail', has Nefertiti Snorkjutt in Maui attempting to rescue Lola from the clutches of Bruce--who Lola rescued Nef from after Nef rescued Lola from... You know, this could go on forever. Cut to the chase: Bruce wins.At last I have a chance to report on my search for the misogynist Bruce and the, well, intrepid Lola. Lola rescued me from Bruce's

Micknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1089277683364310172004-07-08T05:02:00.000-04:002004-07-08T05:08:03.366-04:00

(Edited from a post at Omnium) Maine Line (I know, bad title) is brand new--only a month or so old--and written by a guy in north-central Maine named Emmett who says it's a summer project for his creative writing class. It's a public blog, though, either because he didn't know how to make it private or because he didn't give a damn if it was or not. I'm guessing the latter because that's what

Micknoreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1089230307431863012004-07-07T15:56:00.000-04:002004-07-08T01:14:14.726-04:00

(Edited and expanded from a post at Omnium) 'indiejade' of The Mermaid Tavern (Born Feb '04) is helping to redefine the blog by exploring its creative possibilities. Forsaking the standard socio-politico-cultural-personal rant/analysis format in favor of humorous or satiric monologues and set-pieces on the vagaries and anomalies of everyday existence, she uses her own life as a launching pad for

Micknoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7558278.post-1089186541962409772004-07-07T03:21:00.000-04:002004-07-08T01:15:58.160-04:00

(Edited and expanded from a post at Omnium) A new wave of bloggers is starting to turn the blog into an art form of its own. What was once reserved for political and social commentary, personal diaries, and self-indulgent rants has begun to attract people with real talent who are using the blog as a creative device. The first of these I noticed (and still, to my mind, the best of them) was

Micknoreply@blogger.com15